


i'd follow you to the ends of this plane (and beyond)

by levviewrites909



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb is sad, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode 82 Spoilers, Kissing, M/M, The Happy Fun Ball is so FUN, fjord is trying his best, i like talking about their blood pact, its about the hands, slight mentions of caleb's scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 03:56:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21220169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levviewrites909/pseuds/levviewrites909
Summary: By Jester’s feet, he saw Nott curled up in a little ball of goblin. She had an arm protectively slung over her bag, a tendency she must’ve developed from the way she lived before the Nein. Behind her Caleb’s bedroll was stretched out, a bit mused but entirely empty. His bag was still there, his coat and scarf folded and sat beside it.Fjord wakes up to find Caleb gone, which is bad because they are stuck in a demented pocket dimension very fittingly called the Archmage's Bane.





	i'd follow you to the ends of this plane (and beyond)

**Author's Note:**

> Wow I haven't written in a while. Anyway, I still love widofjord and I keep thinking about how Caleb is most definitely feeling useless right now and nobody has really addressed it yet and how whenever Fjord feels useless Caleb always steps in to defend him and make him feel better and also how I'm just getting a lot of inspiration from them being stuck in the Happy Fun Ball. There will definitely be more to come.

Fjord felt something like a prickle, a faint throb emanating from his right palm. His eyes flickered open to a stone ceiling, supporting beams of metal and wood stretched across it. A soft glow spread from the middle of the room, casting the long shadows of the chains hung from the ceiling and the imposing figure of the still golem, waiting for work to be requested of it. 

He sat up slowly, still feeling a bit groggy with sleep’s claws dug into his brain. He wiped the crust from his eyes and glanced down at his right hand. Nothing looked particularly out of the ordinary; his hands reflected his days as a sailor, rough and calloused. Then of course there was the thick, self-inflicted scar stretched across his green skin. He folded his hand once, twice, and twisted it to stare at his knuckles. There was no indication as to why his palm felt so strange, though the throbbing was intensifying as he stared. He looked at his palm again, at the scar. Caleb. And-

Fjord glanced around, suddenly feeling like something was amiss. The group was all pressed into the small space, sleeping soundly with their faces pressed against their bedrolls or their bags. Jester was only a few inches from him, with Beau pressed against her back, snoring loudly. Caduceus was on the other side of Fjord, still on his back with his hands folded over his chest in a strange way that reminded Fjord of a corpse. It was hard to get used to the way Caduceus slept, the way he snored like thunder. Maybe it was because Fjord still missed the way Molly sprawled out like a starfish, tail swishing and poking and prodding. By Jester’s feet, he saw Nott curled up in a little ball of goblin. She had an arm protectively slung over her bag, a tendency she must’ve developed from the way she lived before the Nein. Behind her Caleb’s bedroll was stretched out, a bit mused but entirely  _ empty.  _ His bag was still there, his coat and scarf folded and sat beside it. 

Fjord’s palm was  _ undulating,  _ he felt like there was something rolling around under his flesh and pressing up against his skin, trying to claw its way out just under his scar. He jumped up without thinking, trying his best to be as silent as he could even tucked deep within the confines of his rustling bedroll. It wasn’t exactly easy to slip out, and it took a few moments, but once he was out he was able to stand. 

He noted then that the shimmering dome that Caleb had always put up was long gone. The true realization that Caleb wasn’t there struck him then, and something strange and panicked knotted up in his belly. 

He carefully stepped over the bags strewn about the floor around them, crouching down to pick up his bag of holding as he went. He slid it over his shoulder as he moved away from the group on the tips of his toes, out towards the portal that had led to the experiment chamber.

The halls were silent now; so much so that Fjord felt the same amount of uneasiness as he did when the thrum of the heartbeat shook the entire chamber. They had left the experiment chamber a mess of black goop, broken glass, and an acidic fluid of some sort that Fjord did not feel like dealing with. He carefully stepped through the centimeters of fluid that had been pooling on the tile floor, keeping an eye out for any Halas clones that managed to survive the destruction of the Permaheart. Each step he took was accompanied by the crunch of glass under his boot, and the quiet drip of some sort of fluid from somewhere in the room. The chains overhead were completely still, no longer swaying with the pulse of a heart.

“Caleb,” Fjord hissed, wanting to track down their missing wizard whilst also calling the least amount of attention as possible- Melora forbid there was something still lurking. 

There was an uneasiness creeping at the back of Fjord’s mind, digging itself into his brain and nagging at his subconscious as he looked about the room. The weird greenish lights cast strange shadows about the room, it made his stomach feel icky. A part of Fjord thought he should go get the rest of the group, alert them of Caleb’s disappearance so they could go together, but another part of Fjord knew that doing so would subject Caleb to backlash that would make him even  _ more  _ tense than he already was.

Caleb had been acting strange for the entire time they’d been traversing the Happy Fun Ball. He’d seemed lost in thought most of the time, and erratic the rest of it. He wasn’t in his right mind, though Fjord did not really blame him on that front. This was a place designed to  _ crush  _ Archmages into dust, and Caleb was far too reliant on magic for Fjord to feel comfortable with him wandering around alone.

The experiment chamber was just as devoid of conscious life as the last time Fjord had checked, which worried him a bit. He glanced back and forth from the two doors in the chamber. One had led to the study, whilst the other towards the Dreadnaught. Surely Caleb was not stupid enough to go alone into that room, (though a tiny bit of doubt had wedged its way in Fjord’s mind about Caleb’s sanity recently. It wasn’t that he was stupid, he was just acting different. He was letting something get the best of him). The other door led to a dark winding staircase that would lead to the study, and now  _ that  _ was promising. There had been books on the wall, had been different bits that Caleb could perhaps be looking through. He got off on learning, after all, and Fjord had ruined Caleb’s first chance at the first study they had encountered in here.

Fjord stepped forward through the still open door, the door that Caleb had opened with a fantastic spell that’s knocking sound had sent shivers up Fjord’s spine. 

Fjord ignited the Star Razor and stared down the staircase, watching as the light cut off into pitch dark blackness that even  _ his  _ eyes could not pierce through. He took a deep breath before descending, murmuring something to Wildmother as he continued through the inter-dimensional doorway.

Fjord hit the darkness and forced himself to keep going, frustrated when he realized that the light from the Star Razor had done absolutely nothing for him. He took slow steps, wary of the strange pull that gravity had on them, and eventually he found himself in the study.

It was much the same, just as touched as they had left it. The shelves were still full of books, the jars once filled with bits of hearts now filled with black ichor. Caleb was, of course, nowhere to be found. Fjord glanced around, now worried that Caleb might’ve found another door.

“Caleb,” he murmured into the space, just loud enough that his voice carried. There was no reply, much to his dismay, and Fjord’s gaze was pulled towards the hole in the floor that the Mighty Nein had fought disgusting fleshy tentacles and a giant, pulsing heart inside of. 

Fjord cringed and forced himself forward before he could overthink it. The darkness was again worrying, and he took slow steps, knowing that they were not quite normal. Fjord’s belly had begun squirming, knowing that if Caleb  _ wasn’t  _ here then there would be a  _ big  _ problem.

Fjord came to the bottom of the staircase, finally, and out into the now lifeless chamber that once housed the Permaheart within the careful confines of a magical glass jar. The runes on the walls were no longer lit, the glass was shattered and the heart was ash, and the bits of flesh stretching from the heart were now all black and crumbly. 

The room was dark, though Fjord’s eyesight and the illumination of his sword was enough to make out the slender human shape at the back of the room, straight across from the doorway. There was a gentle orange light coming from the shape, bright enough to cast strange muffled shadows and give a bit of light to whoever was in the general vicinity. 

“Caleb?”

It had to be Caleb, though. He had left his jacket, but Fjord recognized the red hair and the leather of his boots.

The man spun on his heel quickly, looking startled, the flame on his fingers bursting a bit brighter in panic.

“Hey! It’s just me! Fjord!”

The flames flickered. Caleb looked perplexed for only a moment, then relieved, relieved enough to drop the spell in its entirety, leaving that half of the chamber much darker. Fjord could make out enough of his face even from the distance, seeing a look of concern cross his face.

“Fjord. You scared the shit out of me.”

“You scared the shit out of me, too,” Fjord told him. He gestured back towards the general direction he came from. “I woke up and you were just gone.”

Caleb looked a bit frustrated, perhaps a bit ashamed. “I- Where are the others?”

“I didn’t wake them,” Fjord said. 

Caleb breathed out a bit more, some tension bleeding from his shoulders. “Danke, Fjord. Truly.”

“What the hell are you doing down here,” Fjord asked him. He didn’t mean to sound so angry, but he was frustrated. Caleb was fully aware that the others had started questioning again, wondering if he was really as much of a team player as they thought. Instead of using common sense and taking a step out of his own head, he was diving in deeper and deeper, almost leaning  _ in  _ to the fears of the others. “You owe me that, for not waking the others.” 

Maybe that was a bit cruel, to  _ blackmail  _ Caleb, but hell it worked. They need to work more cohesively if things were going to continue working for the Mighty Nein, and Fjord refused to have it go any other way.

“I was looking at the runes. Like you had suggested before,” Caleb said, a bit quietly. “I couldn’t figure them out before so I thought it would be a good idea to come back down.” 

Caleb was standing quite still on his feet, though his upper-body was fidgeting. His arms were crossed, his fingers scratching lightly over the skin of his arms. Fjord had seen him doing that earlier. Fjord couldn’t see them properly from this far away, but he had seen his forearms enough to picture the way his fingernails scratched over the various scars that littered his skin. It had made Fjord a bit sick to his stomach the first time he saw them, then a bit angry because how could  _ anyone  _ treat a child like that, how could anyone treat  _ Caleb  _ like that.

Fjord frowned. He stepped a bit closer, letting the Star Razor’s light shine over more of the chamber. He got within two feet of Caleb before he stopped, close enough to see the way the light played off the warm copper of his hair and the pale of his cheeks.

“Oh.” Fjord knew Caleb had been frustrated, he hadn’t been hiding it very well. He looked like he was close to giving up entirely. He wondered if Caleb was dangling his own failures above his head, punishing himself for his inability to contribute as he usually did. That wasn’t his fault, though. Fjord hadn’t been all that useful either, at least in an arcane sense. 

“Ja. I- I am not very good at abjuration that is not _my _specialty, but it is good knowledge to have, I suppose. I have been creating small sketches, as well.” He held up a worn leather notebook. He looked flushed, a bit guilty and embarrassed like a kid that got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “My apologies. For worrying you.”

“It’s alright, Caleb,” Fjord told him, and he meant it. He really did. “What’s- are you alright, though? Honestly?”

“Ja, ja. I am as fine as I can be, you know,” Caleb told him. He grinned awkwardly right at the end, and Fjord wanted to cringe. Caleb could normally lie quite well, though it was apparent there was  _ something  _ on his mind. 

“Right,” Fjord nodded, not quite believing him. So he told him so. “No offense Caleb, but that sounds like some bullshit.”

Caleb huffed. “Worth a try, I suppose.”

“You can talk to us, Caleb,” Fjord told him. He wanted to reach out, put a hand on Caleb’s shoulder, or maybe interlock their fingers like Caleb had a habit of doing to him. His palm throbbed a bit at the thought of it,  _ wanting.  _

“I-” Caleb looked a bit at a loss. His hair was falling out of the ribbon he had it tied back in, many loose strands falling into his face. It was the one thing that Caleb had not changed since the first time Fjord had met him, and now the reddish strands were long enough to fall over his collarbone and perhaps a bit lower. 

“You talk to Beau, do you not? And Nott?”

“It is- it is  _ different,  _ Fjord,” Caleb told him. He sounded a bit short, though not towards Fjord directly. “It is just- different. It is a circumstance you cannot understand.”

“I can’t. You’re right. I can’t understand until you tell me, Caleb,” Fjord said. “I know I’m not as smart as you but I promise if you go slow I’ll get it.” Fjord finished his thought with a small smile, an attempt at a joke.

Caleb did not smile, though his lip upturned a bit as he said it. His fingers were dug into his his forearms, scratching and fidgeting as they spoke. He wasn’t quite looking at Fjord; he looked…  _ nervous.  _ Fjord didn’t like watching him scratch his scars like that either, and so he slowly reached forward. 

“May I?” He asked, because he wasn’t about to grab Caleb without asking first. His hands were outstretched, a few inches from Caleb, and at his words Caleb looked down at himself and seemed to realize what he was doing. He huffed a bit at that, and he let his hands slip away from where they were tangled.

“Ja,” he mumbled, barely even a whisper, and Fjord took both of his hands in his own. Caleb’s hands were warm, perhaps from the flames that had just licked up his palms but Fjord had held Caleb’s hands enough to know that he was just a warm person. Fjord wondered if it had to do with the magic he was charged with, if there was magic bubbling just below his skin at all times, restlessly waiting to be released. His fingers were long and thin, dexterous enough to trace intricate arcane symbols and gesture in just the right way to pull magic seemingly out of thin air. His hands were not soft by any means, there were too many places that Fjord thought perhaps some accidents had happened. Burns, acid, cold. They were softer than Fjord’s hands, though.

“Are you alright, Caleb? You’ve got us all worried.” That was the truth of the matter, really. They all didn’t communicate it the best maybe, though he didn’t think any of them were the best at communicating so he wasn’t all that surprised that Caleb didn’t get the hint. 

Beau liked to raise her voice a lot when she was worried, and a lot of times she raised her voice  _ towards  _ the person she was concerned for. Jester liked to breach the subject gently, with silly jokes or a bit of gold as gifts, but she let others shrug her off when they didn’t want to talk about it. Nott drank, she drank and drank until she forgot why she was worried. Caduceus would say what he thought, as honestly as he could, sometimes brutal but otherwise as gently as he could manage- but perhaps it was too subtle for Caleb to understand just  _ who  _ he was worried about. And Fjord- well Fjord didn’t do shit like this. Fjord would ask if people were alright, and when they answered ‘yes’ he would drop it. He didn’t want to invade someone’s privacy, knowing how awful it felt having that done to one’s self. 

Caleb didn’t answer. He wasn’t looking quite at Fjord either, and his hands seemed a bit fidgety in Fjord’s grasp. Fjord shifted his hands so he was properly  _ holding  _ both of them in his own, fingers interlocked and holding firm, reassuring. Fjord could feel the scar in Caleb’s right hand, pressing into the empty palm of his left. Fjord’s own right palm was still  _ throbbing,  _ desperately at this point, like something was trying to rip its way out of his veins. 

“What are you so worried about,” Fjord asked after a few moments of silence. “Genuinely, Caleb. I want to know. I want to- I want to  _ help.  _ We all do.”

Caleb sniffled, hung his head a bit lower. Fjord could hear his breathing, a bit heavier now, a bit more strained. 

“Do you not believe us when we tell you this,” Fjord continued through the silence, unwilling to leave it quiet when he could be saying something. “If you don’t, please know that none of us would’ve let you make that bloody golem in the workshop if we didn’t want to help. You looked- fuck Caleb you looked so fucking excited. Your eyes lit up, like a kid. It was the first time you had looked like that in  _ weeks,  _ and we want you to look like that. We want you to feel like that. We want you to be happy.”

As Fjord stopped talking, he heard Caleb sniffle some more. His breathing was a bit shaky, and he was  _ squeezing  _ Fjord’s hands in a vice-like grip. His knuckles were white with the force of it.

“Caleb, it’s alright,” Fjord murmured, gentle. He wished he had a free hand, maybe just to swipe Caleb’s hair from his face. 

Fjord wanted to see him, he wanted Caleb to  _ let  _ him see him. Because fuck- they had learned so much more about Caleb the last few months and yet Fjord felt like he knew jack shit. He wanted to, so fucking badly he wanted to know what made Caleb tick. He wanted to peel back his layers and examine each and every one. He wanted to  _ understand,  _ and it irked him when Caleb had turned to Beau before him. Fjord had been irritated by the set back they had, all the way back in Zadash a year ago now? Gods, it had been so long, and Fjord still felt like there was this great canyon between them, and no matter how much Fjord worked to build a bridge, the wood kept crumbling before it could get to Caleb’s side. 

Caleb was so fascinating. He was everything Fjord had  _ wanted  _ to be, back when they had first met in Trostenwald. Caleb was smart, he was charming as all hell when he wiped the dirt from his face. Caleb had done things Fjord had  _ never  _ seen in his life, and he had this control over things that Fjord could never grasp in a million years. He made it seem effortless, the way he bent reality to his will and produced flames that charred their enemies. He was determined, he was the most fucking determined person Fjord had ever met and it was both  _ terrifying  _ to watch the way fire lit behind Caleb’s eyes when he wanted something, as well as fascinating to see the way he would put his everything he possibly could into completing a task.

“I promise you it is, Caleb,” Fjord murmured again. He squeezed Caleb’s hands, trying to reassure him. 

Caleb’s breath hitched a bit at that, and for a moment he stopped breathing entirely. It was silent in the chamber for only a moment, however, and then a damn broke and Caleb was- Caleb was  _ crying.  _ Fjord had seen Caleb cry, had watched tears drip down his cheeks when his fire spells worked a bit  _ too  _ well. He had watched Caleb cry out of pure frustration and anger, his fists clenched and his face red as he  _ yelled.  _ He had watched Caleb cry happy tears, just a few when Nott and Yeza had reunited, or when he had watched Jester hug her mother for the first time. He had watched Caleb get close to crying, his bottom lip trembling when someone had been truly kind to him.

He had never seen Caleb cry like  _ this,  _ though. Not in this proximity, not when they were alone and fuck Fjord was  _ awful  _ at comforting people. Fjord stared at him, watched his shoulders shake and listened to his uneven breaths, at a complete loss as to what he should do.

He tried to think of what Jester or Caduceus would do, since both of them were the only ones in the group that were both fantastic at healing both the body and  _ soul.  _ Caduceus would say something meaningful; he would make Caleb tea that he thought he would like and he would offer him a place to vent, maybe even a hug if he felt up to it. Jester though, Jester would hug him without asking. She would hug him tight, would tell him that they loved him and that she would be there for him whenever he needed her. She would buy him sweets maybe, or some paper. The both of them would then hover, would watch Caleb a bit more carefully from there on out, ready to be there if he tripped himself up again.

Fjord had no fucking idea what to do, but he didn’t want to not do anything. 

“Caleb- Can I- What can I do?”

“W-was?” His voice was quiet, raspy and rattly. 

“What can I do to help you,” Fjord asked again. “I’m really shit at comforting people and I don’t really know what to do and I-”

Fjord noticed something on Caleb’s neck and shoulder, a giant reddish brown stain that had bled through his shirt. “Did you- are you alright? Did you not heal up after the fight?”

Caleb looked up a bit, and Fjord saw the puffy rims around his eyes. He looked confused, though, more than anything, still sniffling. 

“Your neck,” Fjord said. “There’s blood.”

“Oh, I- ja. I didn’t finish patching myself up. Didn’t rest much either.”

“Can I heal you up?”

“You can do that?”

“Yeah,” Fjord told him. He let go of Caleb’s hand, and pressed his right palm instead to his neck and shoulder. He murmured a quiet prayer to Melora under his breath, and he felt warmth fill his body all the way to his fingertips, and he felt something almost like an explosion from his palm, as the energy poured from him into Caleb.

Caleb gasped at the force of it, immediately reaching forward to grasp at Fjord’s tunic. His knees must’ve buckled a bit, because he was suddenly leaning over into Fjord and Fjord had to react quickly by quickly wrapping his other hand around his waist to keep him from falling.

“Fuck- are you alright? Did it hurt- I’ve only done this once I-”

“No,” Caleb shook his head. He was breathing heavily. “It- it was just  _ so  _ much.”

Caleb’s eyes were no longer as puffy as they once were. He was staring at Fjord, looking a bit shocked and confused. “I- It does not feel like that when Caduceus heals me. Or Jester.”

“Well it isn’t like what they do, exactly,” Fjord told him. “It’s a bit different. Does it feel alright?”

“Yes,” Caleb said. He swallowed thickly, then looked about the chamber around Fjord. “Sorry about- fuck I’m sorry, Fjord.”

“It’s really alright, Caleb. I promise,” Fjord reassured him. He squeezed his shoulder, offered him a smile. “I hope I didn’t push you at all.”

“You didn’t,” he shook his head. “I just- it is hard. To open up. You know this, ja?”

“Yeah, I do,” Fjord huffed. “When I did though, it felt great. I had all of you too, backing me up.”

Caleb nodded. He looked like he wanted to say something maybe, but was hesitating, unsure. “I- I don’t know if I could tell you all, yet. Nott and Beauregard know but, I just-”

“I understand,” Fjord said. “Just know we are here? For anything.”

Caleb nodded again, nodded like he understood and maybe even believed him a little bit. They lapsed into silence again, Fjord still holding Caleb around his waist with his palm pressed against his now-healed wound. Caleb’s one hand was still clutched at his shirt, holding a bit desperately.

“I- I have been feeling quite useless, lately. A bit more trouble than I’m worth, I guess,” Caleb mumbled after a while. “Beau and Nott practically do my job for me at this point. I fucked up with the giant golem that came to kill us, and I fucked up when we were building Willy and I fucked up back in here and I keep fucking up.” His words finished with a pathetic laugh. The sound echoed sadly around the chamber.

“Caleb this place was  _ literally  _ made to fuck with people like you,” Fjord told him. “You rely on magic and in here, people that rely on the arcane end up- well. Stuck. For fucking weeks. We came here looking for the dumbass that you wanted to intern with, after all.”

Caleb snorted. He was grinning just a bit, and Fjord felt a bit warmer at that.

“It isn’t  _ you,  _ it is this place. You are one of the most capable, clever, and powerful people I have ever had the honor of knowing. I am amazed by the things you can do every single day. It’s incredible; you can do things  _ none  _ of us could even dream of. And you’ve been through some of the craziest, fucked up shit I’ve ever heard of- and you came out looking handsome as all hell and with the ability to shoot fire out of your ass and manipulate Xhorhasian wizards into telling you their secrets. You are amazing, Caleb. Everyone else would agree with me.”

The words poured from his lips quicker than he thought he would, and once he got going it was hard to close up the dam. It was all true, though. Fjord had thought these things for a while, always amazed by what Caleb could do. Fjord had been fascinated by Caleb the second they had met, and his attention had always been pulled towards the man who could create some of the most intricate plans, translate just about anything they needed, and was basically a library of information that they could call upon at any time they needed it.

Fjord was almost caught off guard by the look on Caleb’s face, when he finished speaking. It was never something he’d seen pointed towards himself before, perhaps something more meant for Jester or Nott or Beau when Caleb thought they weren’t looking. Caleb was  _ smiling, _ truly smiling, a warm sort of smile that seemed to light up this disgusting rotting chamber. His eyes were so bright, not with fire but with  _ fondness  _ and  _ appreciation  _ and Fjord was reminded of a few months ago, when Caleb had whispered to him that he  _ appreciated him  _ and Fjord hadn’t been able to see what Caleb looked like but he wondered if it was anything close to this.

“You are too kind, my friend,” Caleb breathed out, voice wavering a bit. 

“I am being honest, really,” Fjord shrugged. “I could also tell you how you’re a jackass for walking off on your own even though you  _ know  _ that a small breeze could knock you over and none of us would even fucking  _ realize _ . Or I could tell you that sometimes you’re so fucking stupid for thinking none of us care, and one day it is going to  _ kill  _ you.”

Caleb chuckled. It sounded a bit shaky, a bit wet. “I appreciate the honesty. Your opinion is duly noted.”

“Ahuh.” Fjord didn’t believe that for a second. He knew that Caleb would hear the words but wasn’t quite capable of internalizing them, not yet. Maybe soon. Maybe this would help a bit.

They were still standing quite close, Fjord’s right palm pressed to Caleb’s shoulder and his other on his waist. Caleb had one hand gripped onto Fjord’s shirt, the other limply at his side. The realization of their proximity made Fjord flush, though he felt as if he shouldn’t move. Not with Caleb looking at him like that, like he wanted to say something  _ so  _ fucking very important. Fjord decided he wouldn’t move an  _ inch  _ until Caleb was ready to say it, too fucking curious with his heart nearly hammering out of his chest and his stomach twisting in a similar sort of exhilarating anticipation that he felt when he was about to take a stupid risk.

Fjord swore he felt a breeze, warm and soft and  _ motherly,  _ pushing at his back, in the direction of  _ Caleb.  _ He saw it too, saw the way that Caleb’s hair shifted slightly, almost perfectly so that it framed his face. His gaze fell to Caleb’s lips almost involuntarily, as if the breeze had pushed his eyes downwards too. 

Fjord thought of Caleb’s words, that night months ago when they were bunking down for the night in their shared room. He had been entirely exhausted from the day the had; too many close fucking calls to really fully comprehend. Fjord was sure at that point that he hadn’t quite realized that they were  _ there,  _ in  _ Xhorhas,  _ and had just handed over an ancient fucking artifact to save their asses from death and despair.  _ Sometimes you have to get a little crazy,  _ Caleb had said, when Fjord was nearly asleep and thought the words made no fucking sense. 

He let the words bounce around in his head, let himself roll them over and over until he felt like he just  _ needed  _ to lean forward and press his lips to Caleb’s. Caleb’s lips were chapped, and warm, still as stone and they tasted like the tea Caduceus had served them before bed. Fjord tightened his grip a bit on his shoulder, on his waist, as he pushed himself further into his space and he tried desperately to get his feelings to cross between where their skin touched. Fjord’s right palm was warm, it was tingling and it was pulsing and it felt so fucking strange where his old falchion had previously split his palm.

He pulled back after only a few seconds, and he opened his eyes to find Caleb looking up at him, a bit shocked.

“Calculated risks, y’know,” Fjord whispered, as if it explained everything but in reality Fjord just wanted to break the silence.

“Was that, calculated,” Caleb asked, and he looked surprised. His voice wavered a bit, his syllables a bit shaky when he fit them together to ask.

“I don’t really know, I just  _ really  _ fucking wanted to,” Fjord replied, and then he felt Caleb cup both of Fjord’s cheeks in his hands and pull him back into a kiss. Fjord couldn’t help but smile into it, and after a few moments he pressed Caleb further into the wall, backing him right up against that strange rune, just so he could get as close as physically possible. 

Caleb was kissing him  _ hard,  _ he was kissing him like he had been desperate for this for fucking years. He was only a bit sloppy, unpracticed; and that didn’t really surprise Fjord from what he  _ did  _ know about Caleb. The last time Fjord had kissed someone’s lips was  _ Avantika’s,  _ and he immediately pushed that thought away because this was different and this was so much fucking better because he  _ wanted  _ this.

Their kiss deepened, and the rough desperation that had pulled them together started to give way to something a bit slower, though just as desperate. 

Caleb’s hands slid down to his chest, resting on his tunic and  _ feeling  _ him and that was  _ so  _ fucking hot that Fjord almost felt dizzy. He slid the hand he had around Caleb’s waist lower, and he pressed instead against the small of his back to press him closer to his front.

Caleb pulled away to pant into his mouth, and Fjord smiled at the taste of his breath before kissing him again. Fjord wasn’t sure how long they kissed, though there  _ was  _ a thought in the back of his brain that reminded him that a few minutes here could be  _ hours  _ in the real world and fuck. They were in the Happy Fun Ball. They were currently standing in a room with flaky bits of veins and flesh slowly rotting away all because they had managed to pound into a fleshy chunk of magical heart. 

“Wait, Caleb- we are in a disgusting fucking room right now.” Fjord pulled back just enough to breathe the words against Caleb’s lips. 

Caleb laughed. His breath was warm.  _ He  _ was warm. “Ja, I suppose we are. At least we are not kissing in the experiment chamber.”

Fjord’s face screwed up at the thought of it. “Eugh. I don’t want any stray eyeballs in the Halas goop looking at us.”

Caleb laughed again, and he stood up a bit taller on his toes so he could press another kiss to Fjord’s lips, chaste and gentle and  _ fuck  _ this was one of the most addicting feelings Fjord had ever experienced.

“I would not want anyone else to wake up,” Caleb sighed.

“Yeah, we should head back,” Fjord agreed, though it took a lot of willpower to then force himself to step away from Caleb. He tried not to look at Caleb’s lips, or his face at all for that matter because his lips were swollen from where Fjord had kissed them and his face was  _ flushed  _ and if Fjord wasn’t careful he might be tempted to spend a few more minutes alone in here.

He held out a hand for Caleb to take, his right one because he felt like he needed to. Caleb took it, and smiled, a bit shy and wasn’t  _ that  _ a fucking sight.

They wandered back through the various doorways, up stairs and through pitch darkness, through a mysterious study and a dingy experimentation lab. They walked back through the final door to get back to the golem workshop, and to their relief, everyone was still asleep.

Well, almost everyone. Caduceus was sitting up a few feet from where his bedroll was, back against the wall, staff at his side and seemingly patiently  _ waiting.  _ He looked expectant, and he didn’t look surprised when Fjord and Caleb showed up.

Caleb dropped Fjord’s hand as if it had burned him, and Fjord didn’t really blame him. He wasn’t sure that they weren’t obvious anyway, because Caduceus was  _ perceptive  _ and he could probably see  _ something  _ that gave away what they had been doing.

Caduceus raised an eyebrow towards them, but Fjord just brought a finger to his lips. He didn’t want the others to wake up, and he made a mental note to thank Caduceus for waiting up for them instead of waking the others. How awkward would it have been, if the Nein had stumbled into the chamber only to see Fjord pressing Caleb against a wall and kissing him breathless. 

Caleb stepped over Jester’s bag, and then over Nott, and sat down as quietly as he could as he reclaimed his space. He met Fjord’s eyes and smiled, and Fjord’s heart jumped a little bit at that, and he couldn’t help but smile back in a way that  _ must’ve  _ been dopey as all hell. Caleb laid back down, on his side so he could push his back up against Nott’s. She didn’t stir, Fjord made sure as he carefully got back into his own bedroll. 

He stared at the ceiling, and then glanced over and watched Caduceus for a few moments. He was reading, eyes slowly scanning the page before him. Fjord noticed a few bits of incense strewn out around him, and a few little totems and figurines that Caduceus used when communing with the Wildmother.


End file.
